


Boxing Day

by ramathorne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Enemies to Friends, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Slash, Swearing, also: flint-typical violence, quidditch typical violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-09 17:25:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5549096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ramathorne/pseuds/ramathorne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver's always been fond of Boxing Day. Good food, good cheer, and a day dedicated to Quidditch? It was his favorite, most treasured tradition.</p><p>He should have known Marcus Flint would find a way to bugger it to hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i am freedom-american so i apologize if my colloquialisms are complete ass
> 
> also this was supposed to be a short distraction from the other fic i'm writing (read:slowly agonizing over) but there's already two parts to this goddamn thing so i'm just going to throw this out here before it gets any weirder that im not posting this on 12/26.
> 
> i also apologize in advance if im particularly offensive to anyone rn. it is late and i am so very tired? damn.

Oliver's always liked Boxing Day. Boxing Day was the lazy morning after the holidays-- a short lived, precious in between that still carried the festive spirit of Christmas without the stress of gift-wrapping, traveling, and preparing for the inevitable hell that would be family dinner.

It was also considered the unofficial beginning of the Quidditch practice season-- which, of course, just made Oliver like it even more. The local test matches each region of Britain holds tend to run all day-- _all day!_ – and Oliver has been to every single one in his area almost _religiously_ since he was a wee bairn on his father's shoulders.

Now that he was Keeper for Puddlemere United-- _really_ the Keeper, he'd _just_ been bumped up from reserve for the coming season-- it just made it all the better for him. A whole day of nothing but friendly competition to work up a roaring appetite for all those holiday leftovers his mum had shoved into his arms before he left?

Yeah.

Oliver's always been fond of Boxing Day. Good food, good cheer, and a day dedicated to Quidditch-- It was his favorite and most treasured tradition.

He should have known Marcus Flint would find a way to bugger it to hell.

–

Despite the cold, the crowd that's gathered for the day is huge.

It's even bigger than Oliver's used to seeing it, but he's not surprised by the turnout. It feels like everyone's been struggling desperately to return to normalcy since the war, and what with the Quidditch World Cup cancelled last year, it was only natural the need for sport-- for a distraction-- had grown stronger.

He's not surprised when his teammates, caught up in all the enthusiasm of another season, whoop and shout with the best of them-- completely ignoring their assistant coach's attempts to get them under control and paying attention to the roster. He's also not surprised when he sees Coach Deverill watching the proceedings with a despairing look on his face, wiping a handkerchief over his brow for the umpteenth time because he's sweating like a pig under his twenty-odd some winter layers.

Oliver is surprised, however, when he sees Marcus Flint step out onto the snow-covered pitch, trading the rich green of his old house colors for the murderous blood red of the Wigtown Wanderers.

How fitting.

He manages to not stare openly as Flint lumbers his way towards the central field with the rest of his team's Chasers. In fact, he's proud to say that he stands at attention with the rest of his team, his eyes forward, his stance straight-- just generally looking smart as the schedule for the day booms out from the announcer standing on the pedestal located dead center amidst the field.

All of the participating teams stand in a semicircle behind the announcer's box, and Flint's team, as luck would have it, is located just to the left of Oliver's.

He sees his old rival smirk at him out of the corner of his eye and, very pointedly, ignores him.

Flint notices, of course. He just doesn't care.

“You look shit in blue,” the Chaser informs him-- and it's _loud_ , for fuck's sake. Oliver's head turns sharply to glare but Flint is already looking forward again-- grinning with those ugly teeth of his as his teammates snicker on either side.

Oliver's face goes ruddy and he glowers at the crowd. He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth several times before uncurling his fists.

“Thanks,” he says, cheerfully, even though he knows his posture screams anything and everything juvenile he can think of, like, 'of _course_ you play for the Wigtown Wanderers' or 'I didn't think it was possible to look sallow skinned in both red _and_ green' or even 'at least I can put a new shirt on-- you'd have to do more to get rid of your ginging teeth.'

He turns in time to see Flint smirk nastily, confirming that, yes, he _did_ know all the things he wanted to say, and yes, it was still satisfying to see Oliver struggle and inevitably fail at not sinking to Flint's level.

Sodding glaikit bastard.

“Quit it, Wood,” one of his teammates whispers, elbowing him in the side when their staredown gets too intense, and Oliver snaps to attention, chewing the inside of his cheek furiously and vowing to beat the bloody dead shitlights out of every pass thrown at him today, especially from the Wigtown Wanderers.

Because this was _his_ favorite holiday, damn it, and he was going to do it justice.

Not because Marcus Flint was a buggering, scunnering git whom he wanted to smack in the face with the Quaffle, or anything.

Of course not.

–

Their first match is against the Chudley Cannons, and Oliver almost feels bad for blocking every fumbled shot they attempt to make. Almost, because every failed goal they try for still brings a huge uproar from the crowd. Every score Puddlemere makes leaves them whooping and cheering for more. It's an addictive feeling, and Oliver can't stop grinning.

That is, until he spots Flint, like he has _eagle_ vision, or something, from the player bleachers below, sneering at him with his lip curled and his eyes glinting maliciously.

As he's momentarily distracted he ends up getting smacked in the arse with the Quaffle, bouncing the ball into the hoop behind him, and the whole stadium erupts into laughter-- including his teammates, the bastards.

Flint barks out a laugh, too, and even though he's too far up to hear it Oliver knows exactly what it sounds like-- derisive, deep, and obnoxious.

Burning red, he shrugs at one of his team's Beaters and scratches his head sheepishly, smile plastered on his face and his eyes straight ahead, rigidly keeping his gaze away from the ground for the rest of the game.

–

"You better not lose before I get my hands on you, Wood," Flint taunts, after he touches ground, his team celebrating a victory wrangled from the Ballycastle Bats' scrabbling claws.

Oliver stiffens.

"Leave it, would you?" He asks, carefully, because if he does, then no one can say he didn't _try_ to be civil once he inevitably punches Flint in the face. "It's Boxing Day."

Flint sneers.

"What's so important about Boxing Day?" he asks, and he knows, he _knows_ it's just a bleeding taunt, but Oliver feels every muscle in his jaw go tight, every pint of blood in his system boil.

There's something in Flint's tone that's always put Oliver off his game-- something only he seemed to notice. And it drove him fucking mental that no one else could seem to pick up on it. Everything Flint ever said to him wasn't _just_ about beating Oliver to a pulp. There was something else-- some bigger game Flint was playing at, he was sure-- but _no one believed him_ , because Marcus Flint was _stupid_ _,_ apparently, and there was no way he thought more than two minutes ahead of himself. He was just another Crabbe, another Goyle, another mindless minion who'd just grown up without someone to follow around.

'He was held back a year, Wood,' he remembers Percy Weasley stressing to him, once. 'Unless you're suggesting he did it on purpose,' Weasley suggests, and then laughs, because the idea is fucking preposterous.

And it should be, and Oliver should be laughing, too, but he spots Flint eyeing him from across the Transfigurations classroom, leering at him; sizing him up, and Oliver... isn't so sure how funny Weasley's theory is, anymore.

Slytherins did tend to take revenge to a whole new level.

In the present, Flint is still talking.

"--Boxing Day is just the day owls shit all over your windowsill 'cause everyone's been stuffing them with those fucking arsed holiday treats," he says, and Oliver's fingers clench so hard the leather of his gloves stretch with an audible creak.

"If you think I'll lose at all today," Oliver says, hating the glee that sparks in Flint's eyes at getting a response, "You're sorely mistaken."

Then he stomps off.

–

The semifinals kick off somewhere around in the late evening, with Puddlemere United against none other than the Wigtown Wanderers.

And Flint, in true Flint fashion, tackles the fuck out of Oliver the first chance he gets, and sends them spiralling towards the ground.

It's not anything Oliver isn't _used_ to. In fact, he's kind of more than used to it-- it was probably the only real strategy Flint ever used back in school because it was the only one he knew _worked_. Oliver wants to say that he himself, in turn, is smarter now-- that he's stronger, that he knows his way out of this bleeding, stupid foul, but the truth is? Flint's really fucking strong. That hasn't changed-- hell, it might even be truer than it was four, five years ago. Flint was all swaggering shoulders and lanky, corded muscle, and though Oliver was no flobberworm himself, the fact is-- all of that force being focused entirely on keeping him out of commission is not easy to get out of.

He struggles, hard, keeping his elbows in even as he feels something in his mental control straining so far back it feels like it's going to snap. Oliver's always been good about playing the game-- he doesn't lose his temper, he doesn't trash talk, he doesn't _foul_ , for fuck's sake-- but Flint's always brought him really close to temptation.

 _Really_ close.

"Get the hell off me!" he snaps, and the furious, blaring whistle of the referee in his ears lets him know that he's not the only one incensed at the illegal contact.

Flint's mouth just quirks to the side in response, and he shoves Oliver's broom down and sends them tumbling towards the rapidly approaching, frozen grass of the pitch-- towards where Puddlemere's Chasers are flying low in a valiant effort to avoid being punished by Wigtown's offensive. Which is, Oliver will begrudgingly admit, a really fucking brilliant offensive, and exactly why he needs Flint to _get the hell off him_ _._

"Shove off, Flint!" Oliver shouts.

"Bite me!" Flint snarls back, his teeth bared in a wild grin.

"I might," Oliver threatens, before he can stop himself, and he thinks it's weird that makes Flint _laugh_ , but then he notices their trajectory and forcefully rolls them to the side at the last second to avoid hitting one of the Chasers rushing below them.

That's when he sees the Bludger, heading straight for his face, and realizes belatedly _why_ the Chaser behind them had been in such a hurry.

He hears a _crack_ that's probably the ball slamming into the side of his head, and has about three seconds to watch it stagger off-kilter into the night before he blacks out, plummeting to the grass.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am considerably more caffeinated than i was last night. have another chapter, why am i writing this. oh yeah, because im in shipping hell. sorry.

 

He wakes up in the medical tent with a concussion, a pounding headache, and his whole team gathered around the foot of the bed, varying degrees of concern and/or barely disguised amusement etched in the lines of their faces.

Apparently he's missed the match, _again_ _,_ why does this always seem to happen to him-- and to add insult to injury, as soon as Oliver had gone down, the Wigtown Wanderers had not only caught up to their sixty point lead, they'd also caught the snitch-- 60 to 210.

Deverill _and_ the entirety of the Chaser lineup have to hold Oliver down to keep him from smashing his head into his pillow repeatedly.

"Damn it, Teagle!" Oliver shouts, yelling at their backup Keeper through his pillow. Teagle mumbles something that vaguely sounds like an apology and, from what Oliver can hear of it, attempts to shuffle out of the killzone.

“It's just Boxing Day, Oliver, it's not even really the start of the season yet,” someone says, trying to cheer him up, and Oliver has to bite down on his lip, hard, to keep from screaming.

Just Boxing Day? _Just_ Boxing Day?

 _Boxing Day_ , he wants to shout, _is a sacred tradition,_ but the stern looks he gets from both the hovering mediwizard _and_ his coach cow him a little.

The medic gives him an ice pack and strict instructions to stay away from solitary flying, Flooing, Knight Bus riding, Portkeys, Apparition, and, just in case he was Muggleborn (he's not), driving any sort of automobile or motorcycle.

Basically, Oliver is back to using the buddy system. The ultimate unfairness of it all makes his mood go sour and rotten.

The anguished look he feels crawl across his features makes most of his team shuffle backwards, muttering apologies and looking ashamed. Even the mediwizard seems like he's torn between doing his job and relenting to the expression, which Angelina has described as 'like someone kicked your Crup and then got it crushed by a dragon'.

Deverill, however, in an uncharacteristic fit of firmness, doesn't let Oliver up until he's sufficiently threatened to follow protocol.

“I don't want to see you within twenty steps of an empty broom until a week after New Year's Day, Wood,” he says, authoritatively.

Oliver balks. “You want me out of practice for _two weeks_?”

“I'll put you on the reserve team if I have to. You can attend practice but I _don't_ want you in the air.”

Oliver tries to get something else out, his mouth opening and shutting like a fish out of water, because _really_ , he's fine, he's been hit in the head with Bludgers _before_ and he turned out okay! The lump on his head is only a _bit_ massive, after all.

“Listen, Wood,” Deverill says, leaning close, and it would have been terse if not for the desperate look flitting across his coach's features. “You have to think of the team for this one. I can't have you out of commission when the real season comes around, alright? You're brilliant. You really are, but if anything happens to you, you know I'll have to put Teagle in. We all know Teagle is useless.”

His teammates, who are pretending not to listen, can't hide their cringes.

“I really am,” Teagle admits, from behind their assistant coach. One of their Beaters pats him on the back.

“Fine,” Oliver says, reluctantly, but he's not happy about it. He's not happy about _anything_ right now. He's cold, and his head hurts, and he's been _banned_ from playing Quidditch on _Boxing_ _Day_. Hell, he's banned from playing Quidditch for the rest of the _year_ , and then some.

–

When he's finally dismissed to watch the finals with the rest of the team, they try to cheer him up some more.

“Come on to the Firewhisky stand with us first, Wood,” Griffiths coaxes.

“William's going to do that thing where he drinks hanging off his broomstick upside down,” Hockley says. “You know that's always fun to watch, and you're not supposed to be alone right now, anyway.”

Oliver smiles weakly. “Okay,” he says, even though his head is pounding, and presses the ice harder against his head.

–

They're about halfway there when Marcus Flint ruins that for him, too.

“Oi,” he says, and Oliver bristles immediately, whipping around against his better judgement-- and instantly loses Griffiths and Hockley in the bustling crowd. Shit.

He double takes between the swarm of people and Flint's smarmy troll face a couple times before finding his voice.

“Fuck off,” he spits, all pretense to civility gone, and Flint's smirk instantly drops off his face. His hand shoots out and grabs Oliver around the arm-- and Oliver should _punch_ him for that, he really should, but when he's jerked around a little his vision goes a bit woozy and he stumbles over his own two feet.

Flint notices. He also snorts in disbelief when Oliver has no choice but to scrabble hard at the other player to keep his balance.

“Don't shake the concussed, you daft _wanker_ ,” Oliver snaps, and tries to shove him off. The other player's grip tightens considerably at the word 'concussed', however, and. Well. There is virtually no hope of Oliver getting away now.

Not unless he hexes him in broad day-- _moon_ light, which, honestly, sounds like a pretty good idea, if only he'd stop seeing two Flints at once. One was bad enough, but _two_? The world did not need two Marcus Flints. Especially two Marcus Flints that were scrutinizing him like he was a particularly complicated Quidditch play.

Oliver drags a hand over his face. The roaring of the crowd, the cold night air, and Flint's painful grip on his arm are making his head throb something fierce.

“Seriously,” he mutters. “I just want to lie down and not be bothered for five fucking minutes.”

“Aye,” Flint says. He sounds amused, the git, and _why was he still touching him?_ Oliver tries to wrench his arm away because Flint does not seem to be getting the point. Either that or he just didn't care, which was the more likely answer.

Maybe he really _was_ stupid. Maybe Oliver had just been obsessing over everything Flint did for no reason. No-- scratch that. Maybe he'd been obsessing just for the sake of obsessing.

...Whatever that meant.

Flint still hasn't budged. People are looking at them now, curiously eyeing their Quidditch robes-- but in the end they ultimately dismiss them, bustling along to watch the current matches.

“I want to lie down,” Oliver says, slowly, and looks up to Flint (because who the fuck grows another foot and a half after their eighth year in school? _Honestly._ ) meeting his cool blue gaze without flinching. “And _not be bothered._ By _anyone_.”

Oliver tries to jerk his arm away. It's still an exercise in futility.

“Aye,” Flint answers, somehow cheerful _and_ sinister at the same time, and _bleeding shitting hell,_ he really was just a daft idiot bully, wasn't he? Oliver was a paranoid, obsessive freak who read too much into everything. He's calling it, right now.

“Flint,” he says, his tone polite despite his fingers clenching so hard around the ice pack on his head it starts to crack, “I'm telling you to fuck off.”

“Right,” Flint replies, and proceeds to forcefully haul him off-site, despite Oliver's protests.

Yeah.

Flint's a fucking idiot, and Oliver's just fucked.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still in shipping hell. i will send you all a postcard.

They reach the end of the Quidditch stadium's wards, and once they do, the earth is suddenly jerked out from under Oliver's feet, and he's being compressed so tightly his whole brain  _ aches _ and feels like it’s oozing out his ears--

\--And he pops out of Flint's Apparition, dizzily clutching at his arm (again) and tripping over the mat in front of his apartment.  _ Oliver's _ apartment.

Oliver gapes.

It's a short lived gape, really, because his head starts throbbing again, but it's a gape nonetheless. Because Marcus Flint, whom he hasn't seen in years-- almost half a  _ decade _ \-- knows where he lives. He knows where he lives-- down to the building, the floor, the  _ bleeding welcome mat  _ of his fucking flat.

_ Have you been  _ stalking _ me?  _ Oliver tries to say, but just  _ thinking  _ about more than two syllables at a time is pretty painful.

“Your Muggle ID’s in your wallet,” Flint says, as if reading his mind, and slaps it back into Oliver’s chest, which, strangely, affects his head more than it affects his ribcage-- though his ribcage  _ does _ smart pretty badly from the hit.

Oh Merlin, he isn't hurting this much because he’s  _ Splinched _ , is he? Did Flint Splinch off some of his brain? Oliver pats at himself frantically to make sure he isn't bleeding or missing any of his limbs.

“Oh, for-- You're fine, you fucking knob,” Flint snaps, how is he doing that, Oliver isn’t even  _ talking _ , “I got my license at school.”

And. Okay. He doesn't know what to say to that. Oliver can't even confirm that Flint got it at school because he didn't even bother taking, or even paying attention to Apparition tests-- until he was twenty. Brooms were a much more pleasant mode of travel.

“Muggles,” He grits out, instead, because he lives in a tiny, cramped flat in the middle of  _ Glasgow _ , for fuck's sake, and Flint  _ had _ just Apparated into his building.

“It's still Boxing Day,” Flint replies, sardonically, flicking on the light, and doesn't wince at all when Oliver's fingers dig into his arm because he's a fucking troll-skinned git. Instead, he just fishes his wand out of his red-and-silver robe pocket to unlock Oliver's door and haul them both inside.

Oliver grunts.

“Shopping?” Flint adds on, like he's being helpful. “They're all at the, what's it. The 'mull'?”

“The  _ mall _ ,” Oliver snaps, and despite himself, limps his way over to his futon and  _ flumphs _ over it.

He'll deal with Flint as soon as his head stops hurting. Experience has taught Oliver that if you haven't stopped Marcus Flint from doing something  _ before _ he starts, it's easier to just let him get bored and leave you alone.

It's not like the bastard can make his day any worse than it already is, anyway. Hell, he can't even really mess up Oliver's living space, since there isn't much to mess up. Bed against the wall, a couple of chairs around a table, a tiny stove and oven combo sitting by the icebox in the kitchen corner-- maybe it's pathetic, but he doesn't see the point in paying much for a place he only comes back to for sleeping and having a meal in every once in a while. There's a few Quidditch posters, a blackboard haphazardly Stuck to the walls, and scribbled-in playbooks strewn all over the floor, too, but Oliver is pretty sure that he can handle Flint ruining his shit.

He's had loads of practice dealing with Flint's particular brand of vandalism, anyway-- about seven years of it.

“You fucking eat and breathe this sodding sport, don't you?” Flint remarks, as he gingerly picks up one of Oliver's notebooks. There is pure Slytherin disdain written all over his face.

“Don't,” Oliver growls, and he wishes he could say he was only irritated, but the nasty, incredulous tone in Flint's voice makes the tips of his ears burn with embarrassment and his hands clench into fists. “Don't call it that.”

He’s not embarrassed that he cares about Quidditch. Merlin, he would  _ never _ be embarrassed by that. This sport  _ was _ his life-- Oliver wouldn’t want it any other way.

Flint just had a special way of making  _ anyone _ feel bad for liking something.

“I'll call it whatever the fuck I want,” The Slytherin shoots back, and Oliver just buries his face in his pillow, because what the dead bleeding  _ fuck  _ did he do to deserve this. Marcus Flint knocks him out, knows where he  _ lives _ , can Apparate(??), and currently has his bleeding, shitting self situated comfortably in his room, judging his taste in lodgings, and insulting Oliver's—no— _ their _ sport.

“How can you even say that?” Oliver grumbles. “Quidditch was the only thing you were ever good at in school, if I remember correctly. You should probably show it a little more respect.”

Flint doesn't answer. He also, surprisingly, does not punch him in the shoulder, probably because he's in Oliver's kitchen, rummaging through his fridge.

Where his mum's leftovers are.

His  _ Christmas Dinner leftovers. _

“Damn it, Flint,  _ no _ , you arsehole,” Oliver moans out, sluicing half off the futon uselessly in an attempt to get up. Why did he have to say that Flint couldn't make his day any worse? That never boded well for  _ anyone _ . Not in shows, not in books, and certainly not  _ here _ , where he was certain that the next time he looked in his fridge it would be  _ empty _ .

His efforts are in vain, anyway. By the time his arms are low enough to touch the floor, Flint's already back with two plates stacked high with Christmas ham, nestled next to a sizable serving of mashed potatoes. He drops onto the futon next to Oliver, one leg propped up on one of the dining chairs.

“Payment for watching you,” he explains, and very neatly sticks a giant slice of his mum's delicious cooking into his disgusting maw. It disappears quickly, along with any lingering hope Oliver had for salvaging his good day today.

“You gave me a  _ concussion _ .” Oliver points out.

Flint shrugs, instead of apologizing like a decent person. “I didn't,” he says, swallowing, and proffers the other plate. Which... is weird.

Very weird.

Oliver stares at it like it's poisoned, and Flint rolls his eyes.

“Fine,” he says, and pulls it back to throw a Heating Charm over the food. Apparently he thought Oliver just didn't want to eat it cold, so he... helped him. Which is also really, really weird.

The way Oliver's plate steams up smells fucking  _ brilliant,  _ though, and he's distracted enough by it that he doesn't realize Flint's  _ also _ stolen one of his beers, until he hears the familiar snap-crack of the can's top opening.

“What the  _ fuck _ , Flint,” Oliver groans. “I was saving those.”

“You throwing a party?” Flint asks, raising an eyebrow as he gulps practically half of it down in one go.

_ No _ , Oliver doesn't say, because, well. Any truthful answer to that is just going to be sad, and he knows it. He puts his plate to the side and drops his face into his pillow again, too frustrated to eat.

Flint makes a 'blech' noise behind him. “This tastes like shit.”

“ _ Then don't drink my lager _ ,” Oliver grinds out. Flint snorts and ignores him.

He's not sure why he was expecting anything else.

An uncomfortable quiet follows. Flint doesn't speak again-- he just tucks into  _ Oliver's sodding leftovers _ with a surprising lack of noise, save the clinking of silverware against the plate.

Oliver's always assumed that Flint ate like he existed-- loudly and offensively, and having the Slytherin  _ here _ , making barely a peep and  _ not _ hanging him upside down by the ankles the old fashioned way-- is driving him mental.

He can't stop thinking about it. What was Flint playing at? Why was it, that every time they were anywhere remotely near each other, he felt the need to single him out? Why was Oliver's unhappiness his top priority? He beats Flint a few times on the pitch, they clash heads a few times in class, and suddenly it makes him a Nemesis For Life.

It's not like their team beat the snot out of his, or anything.

Except they  _ had _ , and it was belter as fuck, so.

Anyway.

He had a nemesis. Which was okay, Oliver supposes, but he doesn't know what to do with one that gets him hit by Bludgers,  _ then _ Apparates him home, then eats his food, and drinks his beer, but heats him up an extra plate without asking and if Oliver doesn't stop thinking about this his head is going to  _ explode _ , it hurts so much.

“Go to sleep already, Wood,” Flint says, slurping down the last of his drink, and Oliver's gotten so used to him being quiet he jumps, raising his head slightly to look over his shoulder.

“What?” he asks, stupidly, and then mentally kicks himself.

Flint raises a thick, bushy eyebrow. “Go to sleep.”

“You go to sleep,” Oliver says on reflex, and then kicks himself again, Merlin's  _ taint _ .

Flint watches him and doesn't even bother to disguise his glee.

Oliver grinds his teeth.

“Go,” Flint says, and very gently (except not at all) shoves Wood's face back down into the futon.

In a fit of maturity, Oliver pinches Flint's hand between his thumb and index finger. Flint responds by slamming the other pillow behind him into his face.

“I have a  _ concussion _ ,” he protests, his head throbbing.

“Then go to  _ sleep _ ,” Flint snarls, but there's no real heat in it. “Fuck's sake, I can hear you thinking from all the way over here.”

“More thinking than you're probably used to, I bet,” Oliver mutters, and he didn't think Flint would hear him through the pillow, but when Flint very threateningly rests his knuckles against Oliver's shin, he shuts up.

He's never been  _ bullied _ to sleep before, and he's not sure if it's the head injury or the way Flint's back made the other pillow really warm, but even as he lies there, twisted around uncomfortably and with his legs hanging half off the couch, Oliver ends up dozing off anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> despite my best intentions i may be cursed to write nothing but poorly veiled pre-slash for the rest of my life. this is my shame and i resign myself to it.
> 
> i dont know why people are viewing / paying attention to this at all but i would like to say thank you for giving me even a second of your time, lmao. i hope it's as entertaining for you as it is hair-greying for me. and i've been greying since high school, so.

Oliver startles half-awake when he hears voices coming from the doorway, tensing up instinctively and reaching for his wand.

“--Wood just never came to the stand, see,” someones says, sounding a bit strained. “And he didn't pick up his stuff from the changing rooms, either, so--”

“--He's fine,” comes the rough reply. “I'm taking care of him.”

“Oh,” and then there's a pause. Not sensing a threat, Oliver drops his hand and burrows his head further into his pillow, ignoring both the ache in his temples and the bit of drool that smears across his cheek as he does so.

“What?” the other voice asks, impatiently.

“Nothing, just... You said you were... friends?”

“ _ Yes? _ ” There's so much intimidation packed into the word, that Oliver briefly imagines a very big, very disgruntled guard dog.

“But--weren't you the one who was messing with him all day?” the first voice asks, quickly.

There's a pause.

“Never mind--” the first voice squeaks, “--here's his bag, good to see he's not alone, please tell him to Floo our coach in the morning, happy Boxing Day, cheers!”

Someone rushes off down the hall. Oliver hears his door creak shut, accompanied with a low, smug chuckle.

Heavy boots clomp back to the side of his futon, and he tenses; tries to even out his breathing, but the voice says, “I know you're awake, you idiot,” and he gives up the ghost in favor of cracking one eye open.

Flint glowers back down at him.

“What's my name?” he asks, and Oliver almost says, 'Bugger off', because he thinks he's being messed with, but then he remembers. Concussion.  _ Right _ .

“Marcus fucking Flint,” he grunts out, and Flint grins this-- this  _ savagely _ genuine, lopsided smile that does very odd things to Oliver's stomach. “How long was I out?”

“Half hour. S'past seven.” Flint waggles Oliver's bag in front of his face, broom and all, then drops it on the dining table. “Big stupid guy was at the door,” he comments, after, and Oliver snorts, because  _ look who's talking _ .

Of all the things for Flint to get a hint about, though, it's that one, and he leans over and thumps Oliver on the arm. Hard.

“ _ Injured _ ,” he wheezes, swiping back. It's dodged, easily-- despite his hulking frame, Flint always had been abnormally fast.

“Shut up,” he sneers, and shoves Oliver's feet to the side to make room for himself. Oliver swings them over and drops them in his lap to try and annoy him, but Flint doesn't seem to notice. “Reddish hair, big honking nose.”

“Teagle,” Oliver replies, instantly. Then he groans a little. “Ah,  _ shit _ , I was a git to him earlier.”

“Oliver Wood, a git?” Flint remarks. He sounds vaguely amused, and if Oliver wasn't 100% positive he'd lose his feet in the process, he'd try to kick him. “Get the Prophet.”

“He let your team score  _ six goals _ ,” Oliver points out, defensively, the fact that  _ Flint _ is implying he can be a git stinging him a little. “ _ And _ I'd just been hit with a Bludger.”

“Not his fault you tend to get hit with Bludgers a lot, you fuckin' wanker.”

“They only seem to hit me when you're around,” Oliver growls. “I think the two might be related.”

Flint shrugs, but he doesn't  _ disagree _ , so Oliver counts it as a win. Even counting the valiant climb towards the semifinals, his win-to-lose ratio for the day feels depressingly low, so he'll take whatever he can get.

He leans back then, and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, as if he can rub the tiredness right out of them. Oliver feels Flint's elbow rest casually over his knee as the other player slouches down, legs sprawled out in front of him.

The unnerving domesticity of it all makes something click in his mind.

“Wait,” he says, eyes shutting tight against a sudden pulse of pain, because  _ thinking _ hurt, apparently, “Wait, wait. Did you tell Teagle you were taking care of me?”

Flint tenses. Oliver chooses to interpret that as 'yes'.

“Did you tell him we were  _ friends _ ?” he asks, and then Flint  _ growls _ . Literally growls at him, not just a gravelly, snarling word, but  _ growling _ , an actual, animalistic noise that  _ rumbles _ out of his throat.

Oliver can't help but imagine the guard dog again.

“But we're not friends,” He blurts out, and that's apparently the wrong thing to say, because Flint's elbow suddenly digs into his shin. “Ow--”

“You're right,” Flint says, but his snide tone sounds downright strange--  _ wrong _ \-- _ bitter _ \-- especially with the way his brittle, beady eyes glitter in the dim light. “We're not."

“Ow,” Oliver interjects, pointedly. He doesn't add anything else, because he knows Flint is going to ignore him, anyway.

“Just wanted the fucking bastard to bugger off, is all,” he mutters. Oliver rolls his eyes.

“So you can take  _ care _ of me, apparently,” he says, and feels incredibly vindicated when Flint's whole body goes rigid.

“Go back to sleep, Wood.”

“Maybe I will,” he replies, smirking, because in all his years of making Marcus Flint angry, he'd never gotten him to react like  _ this _ . “But only because we're  _ friends.” _

Flint glowers, and then takes the opportunity to crack open another one of Oliver's beers, because he's a glaikit  _ fuck _ ,  _ what the hell _ , and any smug feelings Oliver has vanish immediately.

“Do  _ not _ drink that, you sodding- _ mmppPH _ .” Oliver shouts, as Flint stuffs the pillow into his face yet again. “Dickhead,” he snaps. It sounds a lot more like 'mhhkhrrrgh' to his ears, though. And his head throbs a little, from the sudden lurch.

“G'night,” Flint says, viciously, and clamps his arms over Oliver's legs to keep him from flailing.

Oliver flips him off.

-

He doesn't fall asleep again for a long time.

At least, it feels like a long time. Oliver's not actually sure what time it is-- he's too busy fuming as Flint systematically works his way through his (admittedly shit) alcohol reserve, and he's stubborn enough to refuse casting  _ Tempus  _ to find out what time it is, because then Flint will know he's antsy and  _ he's not going to let him have the satisfaction, damn it. _

It is quiet, again, though, and no matter how worked up Flint can get Oliver about trivial things, he's still bone tired from playing so much Quidditch in one day. He feels himself start to slip.

Oliver dimly registers Flint shifting his weight off his legs around the time he stops tapping out one of Puddlemere's theme songs on his pillow. And when he feels himself start to drift off, Flint must assume he's asleep, because he reaches over and starts to take off his gloves.

Wait.

What?

Oliver breathes in, sharply, and feels Flint freeze over him. When he gets no further reaction, however, he resumes pulling apart the leather ties running up Oliver's wrists.

Oliver feels his heartbeat start to hammer in his ears.

He lies there, limp and deathly quiet, as Flint pulls the laces apart in vicious, precise movements, mind screaming _what the fuck,_ over and over. He doesn't think it's sexual, or anything, _Merlin_ _no_ , but it _does_ feel incredibly intimate, especially with the way Flint's fingers gently ( _gently!_ Who heard of Marcus Flint _gently_ doing anything) grip just below his elbow to slide his left glove off, and.

Oliver might. Be feeling the stirrings of an inappropriate reaction, here.

Merlin's shitting  _ taint _ .

He blames the head injury. He blames it  _ entirely _ .

Flint holds up his right arm to do the same, and there is no way he doesn't notice Oliver's hands are starting to shake, because he pauses.

For a long time.

“...Oi,” he says, finally, and wriggles Oliver's arm, and though Oliver doesn't  _ actually  _ respond, he feels himself tense up almost immediately.  _ Shit _ .

“You prick, are you awake?”

Oliver swallows. “Mmm,” he says, noncommittally, and Flint snorts.

“You're an idiot,” he informs him, and resumes untying Oliver's right glove. It goes much faster than the first one does, and Oliver doesn't even get to enjoy it.

Uh.

Not that he wants to, or anything, he just-- Flint's doing _weird_ things, alright, and he's been doing _weird things_ all day-- _weird_ things that keep reminding Oliver that he was positive there was something _weird_ under all the meanness and if he doesn't figure out _what the fuck_ _it is_ after all these years, he might go _mental_.

He's only getting so bothered, because Marcus Flint? Is weirdly difficult to figure out when he wasn't on the pitch. During a match he was straightforward as all get out-- hit this, throw that, nothing to it. But figuring out Marcus Flint  _ off  _ the pitch is exactly like figuring out any other player  _ on it.  _ It drove him  _ nuts _ .

Finally understanding what Flint's been trying to do would be like that final puzzle piece of a Quidditch tactic slotting into place-- the rush of finally figuring out what made them  _ tick _ , what got them going, and. And Oliver is going to stop trying to explain this because he's. Kind of just making it worse.

“You're thinking again,” Flint says, roughly, sounding much too close, but when Oliver gets his heartbeat under control and he slowly pulls the pillow off his face, the Chaser's settled back against the other side of the futon, sipping his fourth beer and staring at Oliver's wall intently. One of his hands is wound around Oliver's foot, and the other is gripping his wand, poking savagely at his poster of Jocelind Wadcock, making her wobble about as she tries to score another Quaffle through the Bats' goalposts.

“Why are you here, Flint?” he asks again, his voice low.

Flint, like he's been expecting it, drops his wand and rubs furiously at a spot between his cheekbone and his nose, drawing attention to the slight flush dusting across his skin.

“If you feel bad about the Bludger,” Oliver says--

“--I don't,” Flint replies, cutting him off, but before Oliver can get too bristly about it, he adds on, quietly, “...But I didn't mean for it to happen.”

Oliver's mouth falls open, because that's. Practically an apology. And as far as he knows, Flint has never apologized for a thing in his life.

Silence washes over them in waves.

When he finally finds his voice, Oliver clears his throat. “If you had,” he says, offhandedly, “I'd make you give me that play.”

Flint turns to stare at him.

“It  _ was _ a bit nasty,” he goes on, “--But Deverill's been trying to get us to be a bit more brutal, and it'd work quite well as a feint, I think. Bet Griffiths could pull it off without that massive foul you committed, too.”

“Griffiths?” Flint repeats. “What, the Harpy? She looks like she couldn't bench press a pole with two Quaffles stuck to either fucking end.”

That startles a laugh out of Oliver. “Two  _ Snitches _ ,” he corrects him, “But I've seen her throw kegs bigger than you.”

Flint grins his stupid looking, crooked grin, and when Oliver's stomach does that twisting thing again, he passes it off as hunger.

“I am starving,” he announces, hastily, and picks up his forgotten plate of food.

Flint quirks an eyebrow at him, sipping at his stolen lager. Oliver scowls.

“Oi,  _ mannie _ ,” he says, and Flint must catch his meaning, because his eye twitches a bit, “Heat my food up for me? Since, y'know. You're  _ taking care of me _ , and all.”

“You can heat your own fucking leftovers, Wood,” he replies, coolly, “Just because we're friends doesn't mean I'm going to  _ smother  _ you.”

Oliver shoves him, and it's so unexpected Flint dribbles a bit of beer down his front in the process, the drink seeping into the crotch of his pants and leaving some very choice droplets near his crotch.

He's still laughing when Flint stuffs his face into his plate of mashed potatoes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mannie -> mate, btw, if my sources are correct. tell me if i am wrong, plz & tnx


	5. Chapter 5

When Oliver returns from the washroom, changed out of his playing robes and picking at the last of the dried mash stuck in the edges of his hair, he finds Flint slouched over the back end of his futon.

He greets Oliver with a bland, halfhearted, "Cheers,” and it is still-- hands down-- the most surreal image Oliver has ever seen. Marcus Flint, in half his Quidditch gear, situated comfortably in his living space like he belonged there-- poking at the poster of Jocelind and exchanging awful faces with her.

“Hi,” Oliver says back, and warily watches as his favorite Chaser legend throws a few crude and obviously incensed gestures at him. “Please don’t antagonize my posters.”

“Nothin’ else to do,” Flint complains, and the accompanying twinge of annoyance Oliver feels at his whinging is kind of... comforting.

He’s been unlearning quite a lot of things about Marcus Flint today. It’s nice to know that he wasn’t _completely_ wrong about him being a git.

“Then go home.” Oliver says, picking up the closest notebook and flicking his wand idly to fetch a pen.

“Nah,” Flint replies, crossing his arms and leaning back with _the_ biggest shit eating grin this side of Scotland. “I get you hit, I have to take care of you, remember?” he says.

It’s so casually sincere that Oliver is disinclined to believe it, but his brain, however, rebelliously recalls at that moment _just_ how Flint’s fingers felt gripped around his arm, how careful he had been in removing Oliver’s glove.

He ducks his head and is horrified he’s actually considering saying something like, ‘it's really decent of you’, or, ‘I really appreciate you not being a total tosser’, or, and this one is completely mortifying-- ‘thanks, _Marcus'_ \-- but when he looks over, he discovers Flint is back in the kitchen, having moved on from potatoes and ham to a generous helping of his mother's Christmas pudding.

Needless to say, anything nice Oliver was going to say is wiped from his mind immediately.

“Oh come on, you git,” he says, and his tone is _very stern_ and not whinging at all.

Flint just shrugs at him, like he's saying, ‘what?’ and pulls the spoon out of his mouth to chew his food.

“I'm _hungry_ ,” he says, after he gets most of it down.

“Then go home and eat your _own_ leftovers, I don’t need _you_ eating mine!”

Flint grunts. “Don’t got any,” he says, words a bit stilted, and hunches his shoulders.

Oliver rolls his eyes.

“After Christmas Day? That’s a lie if I ever--”

“--Oh fuck _off_ it already,” Flint snaps, so suddenly that it’s startling. He doesn’t recoil, of course, but the very force of Flint’s tone does leave him feeling a bit blown away.

Five years ago, Oliver would have kicked Flint out of his flat right then and there. Hell, he would have kicked Flint out the second he’d _Apparated_ them, if he’s being completely honest with himself. But Oliver’s in his sodding _twenties_ , now, he’s not seventeen-- and he likes to think he’s grown up a little, maturity-wise.

So when Flint snaps at him, he only gets _moderately_ pissed off instead of _completely._

“Just because you didn’t get to take any home doesn’t mean you can eat all of mine, alright?” Oliver says, putting down his pen and rubbing at his temples. He’s justified about this. Flint comes into his home, not even as a _guest,_ really, and starts swaggering around like he owns the place. It’s downright aggravating. “It’s not my problem you’re quite good at shoveling down everything at once without thinking to take some home for later.”

“Kind of fucking hard to when I’m not even invited to come back for Christmas to ‘shovel down’, so you can sod right off,” the Chaser spits in retaliation, and, oh.

Oh.

Something flashes quickly over Flint’s face then, as Oliver stares in shock. His eyes flicker once to the wall and back, looking a bit like a caged, savage animal.

He looks like he hadn’t meant to say anything at all.

Flint rubs at the bridge of his nose again, in vicious, abrupt movements, the drunken tinge to his face darkening and making him look-- well, _vulnerable._  About as vulnerable as a 6'6'' hulking troll of a man can look, anyway.

“...I’m sorry,” Oliver says, dumbly. As Flint’s face twists into what is quite possibly the ugliest sneer Oliver has ever seen on him, he adds, hurriedly, “No, I really am, Flint, I’m sorry. I didn’t--” then stops, because what the fuck else do you say to someone’s family not wanting them back for the holidays?

He can’t even wrap his mind around why anyone’s family would want that, not even if he tries to think like the meanest, nastiest Slytherin. It just doesn’t feel _right_.

“--I didn’t know, I’m sorry.” he says, and can’t help be fascinated when Flint goes through an entire _plethora_ of emotions with his shoulders _alone_.

He wonders if anyone has ever said ‘sorry’ to him without it being tinged with fear.

“...Whatever,” Flint says, after what seems like ages, and even though his voice is still a bit guarded, the pinched look around his mouth fades away. He looks down at his plate of dessert with his eyebrows furrowed together, as if he’s thinking about putting it back.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Oliver says, too relieved to be angry (and what’s up with _that_ , he thinks) “Go on and eat the bleeding pudding, you numpty. You already got your slobber-covered spoon all in it.”

“Shut it,” Flint says, without bite, and proceeds to take the last beer out of Oliver’s fridge to go with his dessert.

Oliver looks on in resignation. That lager was probably going to go stale by the time he was able to drink it, anyway.

-

It’s ten minutes of clinking, sullen quiet when Oliver finally groans, “Merlin’s shit-covered beard, Flint, I never thought I’d say this, but now _I_ can hear you thinking from all the way over here.”

Flint grunts. Oliver is tempted to glance at him from where he has his face half-smashed into the pillow to see if he’s actually looking his way. The Chaser hadn’t looked up once from the floor after the Weird Pudding Incident, deigning instead to sit and fume silently with his chin bowed, and it’s all driving Oliver a bit mad. It’s so awful and quiet that he actually thinks he prefers Flint being antagonistic instead of broody.

It’s weird he prefers something about Flint _at all._

“D’you want to talk about it,” he asks, without inflection, his words muffled into the cushion’s fluff. Somewhere along the line the cloying, sweet smell of his mum’s pudding had made Oliver’s head start to spin, and he found it was a bit more manageable when he was lying down.

Flint stiffens. “Why?” he asks, suspiciously.

“Because I’m going to make fun of you and call you a complete knob,” Oliver deadpans, and then yelps and kicks out when Flint pinches the bleeding fuck out of his calf. “ _Ow,_ you twat, because maybe you’d _feel better_ , why else would I ask?!”

“Fuck off,” Flint says.

“ _You_ fuck off!” Oliver hisses, trying to draw his leg up. “ _Merlin,_ that smarts.”

“Don’t be a pussy,” Flint says, curling one massive hand around his ankle to pull him back, and digs his thumb into the sting. It’s too rough to soothe the pain away but it still makes Oliver shut up.

He doesn’t know what it is about wanting to lie very, very still when Flint touches him without intent to maim. It feels surreal-- like a spell that’ll be broken the moment he blinks, or breathes, or does so much as twitch a finger.

Maybe that’s all Flint wanted.

“Quit it,” he says, pained, when the other’s thumbnail digs into the fabric of his sweats. Maybe not.

“My dad,” Flint says, and Oliver is about to ask what he’s talking about, but the look on the Chaser’s face is thunderous-- like he’s warring with himself inside, chewing on his words and worrying the edge of his lip with one of his teeth. So he waits.

“He told me to fuck off because I didn’t listen to him,” he continues, gripping hard at Oliver’s leg, like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded-- fingers flexing into the muscle of his calf-- and Oliver’s suddenly thankful it’s still not shorts weather, because the interesting finger-shaped bruises located _on his legs_ is not something he particularly wants to explain. To _anyone._

“About what?” Oliver asks, quietly. Flint barks out a mirthless laugh.

“About what I’m fucking doing with my life, what else?” and it’s so bitter that it kind of pisses Oliver off into speaking his mind.

“That’s mental,” he spits, and Flint’s head practically swivels to look at him in surprise. “What?” he snaps. “Just because you’re a git doesn’t mean you deserve that from your dad.”

Flint looks positively bemused. “Wha?”

“I mean,” Oliver says, and he can already feel it happening-- the winding up before one of his infamous ramblings, but he doesn’t care. “What, is it because of Quidditch? Does he think you’re wasting your life or something? Because if he thinks that Quidditch is a waste of time, then I’m sorry, but your dad’s an even bigger twat than you are, which is _almost_ impossible. There is absolutely nothing wrong with--”

“He loves Quidditch,” Flint interrupts, and, oh look, it’s Oliver’s turn for his head to swivel around.

“...What? Then why--”

“--He told me to fuck off because I didn’t want to play for the Magpies.”

Oliver blinks at him stupidly.

“...What?”

“The--” Flint breaks off and rubs at his mouth, irritably. “Fuckin’ hell, why am I explaining this to you, fuck off.”

“No. No no, wait. A Magpie?” Oliver asks, weakly. “Like, the actual Montrose Magpies. They asked you to be--”

“--A Chaser for them, yeah,” Flint cuts back in. Oliver must be staring at him like a gutted, slack mouthed fish, because he shifts uncomfortably and leers right back. “I’m not fucking lying to you, alright? You can ask Campbell, if you ever see him, the fucking git.”

“Campbell,” Oliver repeats, because the words are there, but they don’t seem to be able to stick in his brain. “Like, Lennox Campbell. Of the Montrose Magpies.”

“Yes, _Lennox fucking Campbell_ ,” Flint snaps. “Look, I didn’t want to play for them, alright? I wanted to play for Wigtown.”

The dam holding all the information back finally breaks in Oliver’s mind.

“Wigto-- You ditched the Magpies for Wigtown?!” Oliver practically shouts, outraged. “But they've won the British and Irish Cup more than thirty times!”

Flint shrugs again.

“They went to nationals!” Oliver says, desperately.

“I already said I didn’t want to _fucking play for them_ ,” Flint snarls, dangerously, and Oliver reluctantly quiets down-- if only because he wants the bruises Flint’s inflicting on his legs to be gone sooner rather than later.

His mind is racing. Flint could have played for the _Magpies_ . He could have gone off to _nationals_ . Oliver _loves_ Puddlemere, loves his team, don’t get him wrong-- but _the bleeding Montrose Magpies!_

“This is why I didn’t want to fucking talk about this,” Flint mutters, under his breath. He probably thinks Oliver isn’t listening.

“Sorry,” he says, automatically, and quashes down the urge to yell (well, yell _more_ ) at Flint for passing up the _Magpies_. From the hunted look on his face, Oliver suspects his father already tore him a huge, gaping one about it. He didn’t need that again, especially from Oliver. “Look-- I just-- that doesn’t sound like something you’d do. That I’d _think_ you’d do,” he amends, quickly, when Flint turns murderous eyes on him.

“Why?” he asks, sourly biting the edge of his beer can. Oliver stares dumbly for a moment before he snaps himself out of it.

“They’re practically a guaranteed shot at the Cup! Or, well-- at the very, _very_ least, bare minimum-- the semi-finals-- stop that.” he says, having to look away when Flint starts literally _gnawing_ at the rim with his eyebrows knit together. He’s pretty sure the sight is making him sick, if the way his stomach is flipping around is any indication. “It’s… weird, to say the least, to think you didn’t want a team that could win like _they_ can.”

Flint doesn’t say anything for a long time. He just knocks his giant, ugly teeth against the edge of his lager tin and _if he keeps doing that Oliver’s going to kick him in the balls._

“You think I care about winning?” he asks, finally.

“Yeah?” Oliver says, incredulously, because is Flint insinuating that he _doesn’t?_ “You always _seemed_ pretty fucking determined about it back in school. Like that time,” he brings up, pointedly, “Where you took the Beater’s bat right out of his hands and _knocked me out with a Bludger._ ”

Flint hides his grin with a cough, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm. “Yeah,” he says, “I got you good, didn’t I?”

“You’re fucking _proud_ about that?” Oliver grouses, “No, of course you are,” But he’s not actually mad. With the way Potter caught the Snitch that day, Oliver’s sure that Flint suffered more humiliation than Oliver did. “You’re a fucking _villain_. Get out of my flat.”

“I’m eating,” Flint protests, mildly, and shoves a bite roughly the size of his palm into his mouth.

“Fuck off,” Oliver says, but there’s no real bite to it, either, and pretends he doesn’t notice how Flint’s fingers relax at the sound, or how he moves his arm to drop his wrist over Oliver’s knee.

-

It’s only when his eyelids are drooping does Flint speak again.

“Uh?” Oliver manages back, missing it the first time around because his brain hasn’t quite gotten the message. He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, blinking blearily.

“In school. I didn’t care about winning,” Flint repeats, and rolls his eyes when he sees how tired Oliver is. “You fuckin’ knob,” he says, and it’s almost _fond_ \-- so close to it that his sleep-addled brain skitters away from it immediately, tries to pass it off as _mocking,_  but he’s too tired to really react.

“Oh,” Oliver says, and drops the pillow over his face, thinking that’s the end of it.

“I just cared about beating _you_.”

Oliver tenses.

“Thanks?” he says, and pulls the pillow back off his face. He’s not quite sure how he’s supposed to approach that admission, but every way he looks at it seems like Flint just wants to needle him. “It’s nice to know that your entire career was and still is based on making me miserable,” he continues, narrowing his eyes further.

Flint frowns. “...It wasn’t,” he says, slowly, as if Oliver’s apparent misunderstanding was completely uncalled for, “But that was a plus.”

“Even better!” he says, maybe a bit too loudly, and burrows back under, pulling his hoodie over his head. So much for _friends_ , he thinks. He’s too tired to deal with this.

“Listen--” Flint grunts, and the Keeper dodges to the right as he feels him lunge forward with his left hand. “ _Wood_ ,” Flint says, and Oliver-- acting completely on reflex-- might he add, grapples the pillow in a crushing hug as the Chaser tries to wrench it away.

“Trying to sleep, here.”

“I fucking _liked_ playing against you, alright?” the other man snarls.

Oliver grumpily peeks out of the corner, suspicion written all over his face.

“What?”

“Don’t play fucking dumb.” Flint says, grinding his teeth together. “You heard me.”

“I’m not _playing_ _dumb_ ,” Oliver objects, scowling. “ _You’re_ the one that looked at everyone like you were imagining the shape your fist would leave in their _skull_. You didn’t like me one bit.”

“I never said I _liked you_ ,” Flint corrects, looking annoyed. “I said I liked playing against-- _listen._ ” He shoves the pillow harder against Oliver's mouth-- _ow_ \-- when he tries to argue back.  “I'm only gonna tell you this once or else it's gonna go to your big fuckin’ head, so you better not fuck it up.”

Oliver makes an offended noise, narrowing his eyes.

Flint leans in close to glare right back at him.

“You were the only one who could _match_ me,” he says. Oliver grunts. Flint obviously doesn’t expect him to _really_ respond, with the way he currently has his hand clamped over his mouth through about five, six inches of cushion.

“Fucking _Hufflepuff_ and _Ravenclaw_ ,” Flint continues, spitting the names like they were poison in his mouth, “Only ever played the safe game. Fucking snivelling bastards running to Hooch and practically _pulling_ the penalty shots out of her arsehole-- I fucking _know_ , alright, but that’s not the _point_.” Flint snaps, correctly translating Oliver’s eyeroll as ‘every single one was deserved and you know it’.

Flint pauses for a moment, chewing on his lip like he can’t find the right words. Oliver very resolutely ignores looking at his mouth.

“The point is _you_ didn’t.” he says, and it’s so quiet, so low that if Flint weren’t _up in his face_ about it, so close Oliver can count the pores on his skin, he probably wouldn’t have heard it. “...And you were the only one that didn’t _have_ to. You play a fair game, Wood. You don’t get pissed off, you don’t whine for penalties, you don’t _foul--_ but somehow your fucking self-righteous wholesome playing _still_ won every match we fucking played against you.”

Oliver wishes he could do something more than just stare at Flint with huge, stupid eyes.

He wants to get his head together-- to disassemble every tic and grudging admission until he _finally_ gets why the fuck Flint is who he is. Why despite being a stupid, violent bully he was still able to understand, within _seconds,_ how to weave through the Chaser formations Wood tinkered with and agonized over for _weeks._

He wants to know _why_ Flint would tell his teammate they were _friends;_ why he’d want to sit on his couch and drink his beer when he could be anywhere else, doing _anything_ else on the third biggest holiday of the year.

“Playing against you is playing a _real_ match. It’s not just chasing the ball around.” the Chaser mumbles. “...I like it.”

Oliver doesn't know what to do with this. He’s _never_ known what to do with Flint, other than blindly stand up to him when he was being an arse. But this?

This is going in the _Weird_ Files compartment of Oliver’s brain, in screaming, Howler Red and marked with ‘Open At Your Own Risk’.

He’s not quite sure that vehemently denying Flint what he wants is what he’s supposed to do in this situation-- with the other’s breath on his skin and the burning shape of his hand over his mouth. He can feel it, even through the pillow, and if Oliver weren’t completely sure he was going cross-eyed from the lack of distance (and the lack of air), he’d swear Flint’s cheeks were pink.

After what seems like much too long, Flint pulls away.

Oliver lies there, staring at the ceiling with his eyes glazed over.

“Okay?” he rasps, when he finally remembers how to talk.

Flint grunts.

And because Oliver is either a fucking sadist or because he _just can’t fucking get over it_ he adds on, hesitantly, “...What does that have to do with you turning down the Magpies?”

He has half a mind to bolt off the couch when Flint barks out the _ugliest_ laugh he’s ever heard, but he _doesn’t_ , thank you very much, because he is a bleeding Gryffindor and he’s not scared of Marcus Flint.

“You really can’t fucking let that go, can you?” Flint says. His voice is still a bit rough, but it lacks the disturbingly manic tinge it’d taken when he had been talking about their school days.

Oliver looks at him expectantly. Flint throws his hands up in the air.

“Because they all play like _you_ ,” he grinds out, “And they expected me to as well.”

“Oh,” Oliver says, and doesn’t know how to feel about being compared to _every player currently on the Montrose team_.

“Wigtown, in comparison,” Flint says, as if he’s bored, “Doesn’t give a flying fuck what I do, long as we win.”

“Of course,” Oliver replies, distantly, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Flint was indirectly implying he was Magpie material. He doesn’t even flinch when he feels the other man drop the pillow back on his face, or when he’s prodded into lifting his legs up so Flint can get better settled on his end of the futon.

He should probably ask Flint if he’s okay. If he feels any better. But the words get stuck in his throat more often than not, and the one time he managed a, ‘Flint--’, he’d been _growled_ at, so he just lies there, once again, in silence-- until the creaking of the house and the feel of fingers tapping out some unknown rhythm on his knee blend together into fuzzy, white noise.

Oliver falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i definitely meant to end this here. i really did, and then flint wouldn't stop talking so now i'm just like, fuck it-- one monster chapter and one short ending to wrap this piece up. it's already becoming more of a beast than i meant for it to be and it NEEDS TO END ~~so i can write the accompanying piece to it before my brain is consumed~~.
> 
> i dont usually write things this long before giving up, so this fic was definitely a sort of learning experience for me. i hope you still enjoy it despite my bumbling, lmao.

**Author's Note:**

> warning: if you read this and then reread it later and notice something is different: congratulations: i'm still awake and nitpicking AFTER it's been uploaded. hooray!


End file.
